


The Tower of Learning

by fits_in_frames



Series: Poses [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-15
Updated: 2005-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fits_in_frames/pseuds/fits_in_frames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he thinks of Lupin when he gets himself off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tower of Learning

**Author's Note:**

> _i saw it in your eyes_  
>  _what i'm looking for_  
>  {rufus wainwright // the tower of learning}  
> 

Sometimes, he thinks of Lupin when he gets himself off.

He doesn't do it on purpose--he'll be tugging and pressing with his thumb in _that_ spot, and then all of a sudden, Lupin is there, watching him with that sad smile he so often wore, and he just _can't stop_.

He curses himself silently and clambers downstairs and attempts to wash out his sheet without waking his aunt and uncle and cousin, and he finds himself thinking about Lupin again: the way his eyes would twinkle at the beginning of a lesson, the way his mouth twitched sometimes when Harry asked about his parents, the way he would put his arm around Harry's shoulder when he would collapse in the corner of his office after trying to face the boggart-Dementors. He hadn't known, at the time, what that leap in his chest meant, but now he stands at the clothes dryer, watching it spin around and around and remembers how he could literally feel the red fill his cheeks when Ron assumed the Firebolt was from a certain teacher ("yeah, but he _likes_ you") and wills himself to not shuffle his feet and make that stupid sound in the back of his throat.

He wonders, as he makes his way upstairs with a wad of wet bedsheet, why this never happened before this summer: last year it was Cho (and Hermione a couple of times, and Ron, just that once), and before that, it wasn't anyone at all. He mutters to himself as he puts fresh sheets on his bed, that Lupin is a teacher, that Lupin was a friend of his father's, that Lupin didn't have those eyes (oh God, those _eyes_ ) on purpose, that Lupin has probably forgotten all about that night when Harry clung to him like a frightened nothing. He looks out the window, sees the full moon, and knows he has.

*

Later in the summer, when someone breaks into the Dursleys' house and he thinks he hears Lupin's voice, he tries to convince himself that this is all a dream and he's going to wake up in a sticky mess that he can't leave for a House Elf to clean up, but instead he feels that leap in his chest and smiles.


End file.
